Customer Reviews

36 Fillette [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fox Lorber seems determined to make viewing their DVD transfers hard work. Their murky, dim DVDs are particularly frustrating, since many of their titles are truly wonderful foreign films. This picture, 36 FILLETTE, is touted as a "French LOLITA," but in many ways, is more reminiscent of [movie title] The young heroine has a grating perverse streak (only blind-and-deaf lust can explain why her older suitor doesn't bind and gag her mid-tirade), but she's nonetheless touching and real; all her anger and venom seem mere cover for a palpable sense of longing. Director Briellat, as usual, rushes into areas of female sexuality where angels fear to tread, here with moving results. The heroine's sly smile in the film's final frame's earned, and you're glad for her. Persevere through this lousy transfer; the picture's worth it.

The film may be worth seeing, but this DVD is of the LOWEST imaginable quality and I strongly recommend you avoid buying it. It is clearly copied from a VHS tape: the subtitles are blurry and cannot be removed from the screen, and the video quality is even worse than a good VHS tape in that the image is excessively grainy and has scratches and dust throughout. Finally, and even more troubling, it is a FULLSCREEN transfer, not a widescreen transfer. I notice that IMDb claims the DVD is 1.66 aspect ratio, but my DVD (purchased Jan 2002) is definitely not.

This is a love story off the beaten track clearly in the tradition of Louis Malle and Francois Truffaut, told without prudishness or gratuitous violence.

The title refers to a children's dress size that the 14-year-old lead, Lili, played with snap by Delphine Zentout, is bursting out of. Billed as a "French Lolita," Zentout is not all that fetching at first glance. She's a chubbette with light skin and thick black hair and not exactly pretty. But she has intriguing eyes and a saucy way about her.

Lili is "discovering" her sexuality, but won't let herself be impregnated. The playboy, played with grace and economy by Etienne Chicot, falls in love with her in spite of himself and "tolerates" her reluctance while being partially satisfied in other ways, one of which we used to call a "cold f..." They are a believable match because sexually they are equal: she precocious, he experienced.

Catherine Beillet directs without sentimentality while guiding Zentout to an interpretation that transcends the American brat style and leads us to a thoughtful view of feminine sexuality.

This is the story of a young french girl rebelling against her family while on a french camping trip (which is basically like staying in a trailer park) near the beach. In the film she gets caught up with an older man and sends him, herself and her brother, on a roller coaster of emotion with this "taboo" relationship.

Though the plot behind the film is good, I find it to be not well executed. You watch the movie (which is rather short) and you get to the end and are left thinking, "what was the point?" or "why?". It lacks the basic beauty that is usually found it French films, and it lacks substance. Also, the casting was not done very well. You watch a girl who is supposed to be a somewhat innocent 14 year old virgin, and she looks and acts much older. Perhaps it's just me, and my friends, I don't know.

Overall, I give this film two stars because of one because it is watchable, and because of the effort. It's not one of the worst French films ever, but it is very, VERY far from being one of the best.

Another frank and earnest film from director Catherine Breillat, who seems to have a knack for inviting controversy. Unlike some other reviewers, I thought this movie seemed very realistic. Many young people are curious about it would be like to have all the advantages of adulthood and are quick to experiment. How easy it is for a young lady, in this case fourteen, to attract an older man for such experimentation. The volunteers are potentially endless. We get a strong sense of the angst she is feeling as she goes through this confusing time as a teenager: still a girl, yet developed physically as a woman. It is not a great film by any means, but I consider it at least good. That is more than I can say for the quality of the DVD, however. As others have commented, it is not widescreen and the transfer appears to be from an old VHS tape. 3 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD. (To have an inferior DVD is better than having no DVD, I suppose)

As a fan of Catherine Breillat I had to have this DVD added to my collection. My rating is based solely on the merit of the film, not the DVD. It's obvious from the framing that the original material was in 1.66:1 aspect ratio and even the trailer was correctly framed. Why Fox Lorber decided to cut the sides off by framing it in 4:3 really baffles me because there would have been minimal black bars top and bottom if they had stayed with the original aspect ratio.

And I wish Amazon would research their offerings more closely because even they claim that this DVD is in widescreen letterbox format. Thank goodness they didn't advertise this as anamorphic!

You would be better off with "Fat Girl" or "A Very Young Girl" than this film about a pouty fourteen year-old brat whose life ambition apparently is just to have sex, but she is painfully conflicted and confused about how to go about it. The ogre she chooses is not much of a looker himself and she tells him so outright, with her amazing social skills. Not much of a storyline here as you can see, and the eye candy is rather on the pathetic side. Mostly the scenes are gross, if anything.

The video quality is about what you might expect from a bootleg VHS tape, i.e. very poor, and the sound quality matches the video quality.

Catherine Breillat (1948) is a brilliant French filmmaker, director and novelist. Her films are intended to take us places we've never been before, and usually outside our comfort zones with their depictions of hard sexual truths. As a result, Breillat no stranger to controversy. Although 36 Fillette (1988) is not among my favorite Breillat films (which include Fat Girl - Criterion Collection, Romance, and Brief Crossing (Breve Traversee)) it is nevertheless a worthwhile film (despite the poor film-to-dvd transfer quality).

As a precursor to her later work, Breillat's film confronts issues of sex and violence and contains provocative themes common to all of her later work. 36 Fillette tells the story of Lili (Delphine Zentout), a tempestuous 14-year-old French girl who flirts with one man after the next while vacationing with her family near Biarritz. She has decided it is "miserable" to be a virgin, and believes she is ready now lose her virginity at any risk. Despite her adolescent pout, Lili is depicted as a child in a woman's body, which (as the film's title also suggests) seems to be Breillat's point here: that in matters of sexuality, we are naive children living in adult-sized bodies. Zentout and Jean-Pierre Leaud (Francois Truffaut's Adventures of Antoine Doinel (The 400 Blows / Antoine & Collette / Stolen Kisses / Bed & Board / Love on the Run) - Criterion Collection) bring excellent performances to the film. It would be difficult to find Breillat's intellectualized sexual dialogue happening anywhere else in cinema, and like all of her films, this is a film people should be debating afterwards in cafes, bars, and their bedrooms.

G. Merritt

I first saw this film in an arthouse cinema when it was released, and I remember feeling that the film seemed a bit unsatisfying. I was rather hoping that Lili would actually make love to her much-older beau, but they seemed to be limited to hand jobs and oral sex (the first time she finally appears nude, late in the film, this is all they do; she hides under the bedsheets while he disappears with some other woman, and she is left, naked and crying, in the bed).

Yet this is a decent film, and not the unbridled kiddie porn that so many reviewers here might have had it be (although I'm really thinking of "The Lover," I believe Delphine Zentout had to be at least 18 at the time the film was shot). What I find fascinating about these films is the fact that I know women whose sexual development is much like those of the female leads in these films. Lili even reminds me, now, of my fiancee in both physical and sexual aspect and, to some degree, psychological aspect. She (Lili) is a troubled girl with a deep and rarely satisfied desire to break free of her family, and her sexual pursuits provide her what little relief she can find, even on holiday.

Definitely worth a look.

First off, this little girl is a real bitch. As with most younger people; they want to be grown up before they're actually ready. I don't think it's very close to reality, but it does tell a reasonably interesting story.
I like the director... but compared, this isn't the best work.